In the beginning of 2012 the traffic, unique visitors and time on site of some smaller sites like Tumblr, Pinterest and Google+ increased and attracted attention from marketers.
The audience of smaller sites can be of big marketing value for marketers as there are not overwhelmed of information like on the bigger ones.
Marketer can gain attention quicker and lead more qualified and quality traffic to their sites to convert them to leads.
This increased lead quality could also reflect in an increasing lead to customer rate.
With better lead quality you save time and money when you convert them to paying customers. Maybe your lead count decrease but the quality increases and you grow your revenue the smart way.
In the past years eBay is an established platform to buy and sell goods. Millions of people day visit eBay to research and to buy products. Hundreds of thousands of businesses utilize eBay to get new customers and to make revenue.
But there is another side of eBay. Increasing fraud, increasing sales and listing fees and the decreasing image value of eBay.
But there is good news for businesses. Ebay is a traffic machine when it comes to target traffic. Moreover the eBay traffic is laser target.
How can you use eBay to lead a ton of laser target traffic to your business? Because this is the only way how you can profit from eBay in the long term, when you build your brand not theirs!
Here are eight easy steps how you can squeeze out eBay traffic and increase YOUR profits:
First: You should change your mind and not use eBay of your primary source of business. This decreases your sales and listing fees and focuses your audience to your website and the listed offers.
Second: When you are listing your offers on eBay you should ALLWAYS include your website and your blog URL in to your listing, so your audience get the chance to visit your website.
Third: Only list offers on eBay as special offers, do not list them in your website and shop at the same time, so the visitors can’t compare. Use eBay to introduce new products for a short time and then only offer them in your shop.
Fourth: Design your website and shop in greater marketing strategy in mind and build it as marketing hub to canalize your traffic to leads and your leads to sales.
Fifth: Build your own email list to keep your audience updated. Include a call to action to your audience to subscribe to your newsletter on your website, so you own your list.
Sixth: Setup a lead nurturing process to keep your audience informed, but do not bother them only with sales offers. This leads to higher unsubscribe rates.
Seventh: Start a corporate blog to open a two way conversation hub for your audience to build trust, position yourself as a credible source and to publish remarkable content.
Eighth: Start a facebook business page and add Facebook special, especially for your FB fans. Start a Twitter and add special offers for your Twitter followers.
These steps above ensure that you build your brand in the longer, drive a massive amount of traffic to your website, generate a ton of business leads and increase your revenue and sales and decrease your dependence of eBay and your eBay costs.
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Free report: Get found and get leads the smart way.
socialmediaexaminer.com has picked under over 570 nominations 20 Social Media Blogs for the Final Winner Selection.
One of those blogs is inBlurbs blog. In our blog we write about Inbound Internet Marketing – SEO, Blogging, Social Media, Landing Pages, Lead Generation and Analytics.
“Social Media Examiner, the world’s largest online social media magazine, is designed to help businesses discover how to best use social media tools like Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn to connect with customers, generate more brand awareness and increase sales. More than 450,000 people read Social Media Examiner each month.
Technorati and AdAge rank Social Media Examiner as one of the world’s Top 10 business blogs. Our more than 120,000 email subscribers look forward to our daily original content.”
We are very proud to be nominated between those great blogs. Many thanks to all of our supporters.
Did you sometimes think about how would it be to increase revenue and profits by being much quicker with product and services development than your competition?
When was the last time you and your business have been ahead of the trend curve?
What would you do to have such a tremendous competitive advantage which enables you to produce products and to create services your buyers demand and want to buy, always and repeat this again and again?
Yes, you would appreciate this advantage and do all the best you can to profit from it. Who wouldn’t?
But the fact is that most businesses are not willing to go the extra mile to achieve this kind of long term success. They simple stay in their comfortable zone and think if they do not take advantage of any new opportunities or technologies than they lower their risks. But the opposite is the sad fact.
I know it, because these are information I have discovered from many conversations of which I had with businesses. These businesses will fail in the long term there is no question!
A small percentage of businesses are willing to go the extra mile and use new technologies and opportunities when they appear. These businesses will be the winner in the future for sure!
One important part of success is the ability to listen and learn!
If you are able to listen than you are able to learn and you will develop yourself and your business to the next higher profitable level.
When you listen to conversation you become aware of new information, technologies and what your recent and future customers think about you and your business.
1. Do you know and do you listen what recent and future customers think about you and your business?
2. Where do you listen?
3. Did you improved your support, developed products and services to solve the target audience demand yet?
If not than I give you some good reasons why you should do:
• In social media people discuss open about their needs and are willing to give more personal information [develop buyer personas to better identify your audience].
• They complain open and want to be taken serious and you can show them that you care
• They give you suggestions for product and services improvements
• You can see upcoming trends, the potential volume and tailor your products and services to fit these trends and to reach those customers who are in demand for such products and services
Infographic: Social Media in Small Business
This is like you personal crystal ball which shows you the future. All this is simply done by listening and engagement in social media.
You decide about your business success for 2012 and nobody else, not your competition, not the economy and not your forefathers! No excuses take action and step into conversations on social media.
This is your extra mile which you have to walk!
I wish you good luck and best of success for 2012.
Content Marketing has become a significant part of online marketing strategy. Content Marketing has proven to be the best and most cost effective way to drive traffic to a company website and convert this traffic to leads and customers.
The most popular ways of Content Marketing are blogging, social media and video. Studies show that 57% of companies which operate a corporate blog get customers through their blogging effort!
4 Reasons to start a corporate blog:
1. Blogging companies get up to 55% more Traffic
2. Blogging companies get up to 97% more Inbound Links
3. Blogging companies get up to 434% more indexed pages in search engines
4. Blogging companies get up to 25x times more business leads
Social Media Marketing has become a powerful tool to spread remarkable content to reach a wide audience.
For companies who engage in social media and show presence in these channels can open wide opportunities to get in touch with their audience. This leads to an increase of credibility and unfiltered feedback of the target audience and can lead to an improvement of products and services.
New studies show that up to 65 percent of today’s consumers expect a brand to listen and to respond on questions, comments and complaints in social media. Studies also show that companies which use social media actively to communicate with their audience are more successful than companies who do not.
7 Reasons to start your social media marketing:
1. Increase customer perception in the marketplace
2. Build long term relationship with customers and partners
3. Can respond to customers in real-time
4. Taylor products and marketing campaigns based on customer preferences
5. React and resolve on negative buzz in real-time
6. Decrease costs of marketing
7. Improved time to market for products and services
Most people think they need to be Steven Spielberg to make a video to put it online to get a positive impact for their business. But this is not true.
You do not need fancy equipment. The only thing you need is a video camera and for the beginning it can be the one from your smart phone.
The most successful video examples come from ordinary people who could not even be considered amateurs. To become successful with your video marketing, with video content, there is only one secret: Just go and do it, do as many video as you can. Publish it and let your audience judge.
6 Reasons to start your video marketing:
1. 200% to 300% more monthly unique visitors
2. 100% longer average time-on-site per visitor
3. 3-minute average time spent on pages with videos
4. 157% increase in search engine traffic
5. 100% increase in unique visitors
6. 63% increase in page views
Infographic: Content Marketing
—What do you think about content marketing? Are you doing one or all three or other content marketing strategies?
Mobile is on the rise. The evolution of technology which companies like Apple and Google have powered has produced new experiences how people find products and services.
People surf from their mobile devices like smart phones and tablets about three hours a day compared with one hour from their desktop PC.
People are connected on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare and other location based services that show them best locations in their area. They rate, check in and check out of their popular locations. There are apps available who show you how to mix a cool cocktail and which houses are for sale in a street.
The things have developed to a new level of communication. This leads to the question when people have their apps activated and are on them, will they additionally take the effort to open a web browser to research? More likely they will not.
The trend shows that search engine search traffic will decrease and companies who are active on location based services will get an increase of traffic as people use them preferable.
Infographic: Local Mobile Search
For a business this means to get engaged on those social networks and services which already are very popular and have mobile apps active. This is the way to get in front of the future customers.
Infographic: Mobile Marketing
Some tips how to profit from the increasing mobile trend:
1. Optimize your website to be accessible from mobile devices.
2. Also a business should start to collect mobile phone numbers to enable their mobile marketing.
3. Adjust the email marketing and the email messages to be easy readable from mobile devices is also a good strategy.
4. Build your digital outpost and get engaged in social media, in location based services and rating sites.
5. Develop your own mobile app to stay in touch with your audience directly.
Summary: With this above activities you can significantly improve your visibility in 2012 and attract more future customers to your business.
—What do you think about mobile marketing, did I miss anything?
BuySellAds reports that 82% of businesses are unsatisfied with Daily Deal Sites. They specially indicate that they are not stratified with the amount of repeat business they generate after running a daily deal.
For me this is no surprise. As the most businesses I have talked to have no idea how to do a daily deal marketing campaign the right way to get the most out of it in the long term. Yes right, to do a daily deal on sites like Groupon is a marketing move. And like all marketing activities your business is doing you need to do it the smart way to profit from it!
MISTAKE 1: The most common mistakes made from businesses when they running a daily deal campaign are to offer deals which their current customers and future prospects can compare with their current available offers.
SOLUTION 1: When you step into a daily deal campaign, than you should put together a package which is only valid and available for this special daily deal and when the deal is over the package also vanish.
Also you should reward your recent customers more than your new ones. You can do this by offer an additional discount for this special daily deal to all of your loyal customers.
MISTAKE 2: Another gladly made mistake when doing a daily deal campaign is to not collect the contact details of your new customers.
SOLUTION 2: You should prepare to collect information like mobile phone number, email address, Twitter ID, Facebook ID and LinkedIn ID of your new customers. This will help you to get and to stay in touch with them later and keep them updated about specials for loyal customers only.
By the end of the day your “daily deal campaign” is a “lead generation campaign” and you should make the most out of it.
MISTAKE 3: Do you know bonus programs? Buy seven Coffee and get the eight one for free? Do you know such programs, yes? Do you use them for your business also when you do a daily deal campaign? The most do not!
SOLUTION 3: Prepare bonus cards with different IDs (can be a QR codes) for each of your daily deal campaigns. This will help you to measure how many of your “deal customers” are coming back to your business and how much they spend. When you add a QR code to every deal and associate it to each new customer whom you issue a bonus card, you will get an effective way to measure your daily deal campaign success and more important to motivate your “deal customers” to come back to your business and become loyal customers too.
Infographic: The Daily Deal Divide
—What do you think about Daily Deal Sites? Did I miss anything?
Today customers no matter if the are B2C or B2B are overwhelmed with information and offers. This makes it very hard for a business to stand out and to get found online for their future customers.
The increasing competition and the decreasing marketing budget make the recent situation and the future outlook more difficult.
Businesses who want to be and to stay successful need to rethink and to reposition their strategies.
It is not enough anymore to be there. Moreover when you are there, but not where your target audience is around than you are nowhere!
What makes a business to stand out of the crowd and secure their share of the market in the long term?
Like anything humans do there are several ways to achieve goals. One thing is try and error. This takes time and can consume a lot of budget. The other thing is to do it like you have done in the past, because it worked “in the past”. But what worked in the past is not necessarily working in the future. Or you use a proven system which has demonstrated thousands of times that it works and is able to bring in positive ROI.
Such proven marketing system is inbound marketing.
What’s inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is the marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services your business also has to offer.
What’s does inbound marketing help me to do?
With inbound marketing businesses earn their way to the customer, by publishing helpful information on a blog, in social media and forums.
What does inbound marketing consists of?
Inbound marketing includes Blogging, Social Media, Lead Conversion, Lead Nurturing and Closed-Loop Analysis.
The MIT Sloan Institute found out that businesses which use inbound marketing are more successful than businesses which do not.
B. Makes a business stand out of their competition
C. Helps to generate a massive amount of business leads
D. Helps to get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates
E. Helps to increase customers and sales
To jumpstart your own inbound marketing system just starts with a corporate blog and publish remarkable and share worthy content. Distribute this published content on the internet and in social media. Measure your results, improve your doings and you are on your track to success.
The use of mobile devices is increasingly growing. Tablets and smart phones have become state of the art technology around the globe. People are consuming video, audio, social media, games, news, books and periodicals on the run.
By the growing use and demand of mobile apps people become more dependent of them. Popular services like Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, Groupon and other are using apps to stay in touch with their audience.
As their audience is actively using their apps when they are on the road the chance decrease that they separately open their browser to research on Google for products or serivces. They will use their location based services and the recently activated apps to discover, products, services, locations, deals and things they are interested in.
People are about three hours online on their mobile devices compared with one hour from their pc.
The more people research this way, the more the search engine research will decrease.
This trend is creating a growing demand for businesses to be visible in these services and their apps as well. Also to think about to produce own mobile apps to be and to stay connected to their audience.
What can a business do to participate from I call it “Mobile SEO”?
1st Register with all important location based services like Yelp, Foursquare, Neer, Loopt and SCVNGR. Engage here with your audience, build and customize these digital outposts.
2nd Be active in social media sites like Facebook, Linked, Twitter and others important to your audience.
3rd Jump start your mobile marketing the smart way. Collect the mobile phone numbers from your customers. Establish a database where you store all important information about them to later have the ability to custom tailor personalized messages to reach them the right and human way. Look out for a two SMS marketing software which enables you to do and to control your messages.
4th Get even smarter and develop your own mobile app for your audience. To get ideas look through the industries and get inspired how others have done it.
Today it is crucial to be active in social media to make your business more visible and this is no secret.
As major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are indexing social media content the chances increase for businesses to get found online when they publish remarkable content and distribute this content to social media where it can be shared and commented.
With the last step to start +1 button and Google profiles and pages for companies Google has opened a other opportunity for businesses to get their content indexed and improve their SEO the social media way.
When visitors of your content click the +1 button than anybody in their network can see what they like including their profile picture next to the +1 vote. Also its the same way with published content on Google profile and business pages.
When you have already shared your published content like blog articles, pictures, video, etc. on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others then you get a further powerful opportunity with the +1 button which you should use to become more visible.
How can you start to use Google + profile and page for your business?
A. If you have a Gmail account than go and register your Google+ profile and complete it. Insert all necessary information and customize your profile. Take care to use long tail keywords in your description.
B. When you are done with your personal Google plus profile than establish a Google business page. Insert all necessary information about your business. Take care to use long tail keywords in your description her as well.
C. Now let your friends know about your Google+ presence and invite them to your circles.
D. To step into conversation publish your content, information in your updates and ask for opinion. Comment on others updates and share them through the +1 button.
Your action and activities will drive awareness of you and your business and hopefully lead interested people to your blog, website and your offers.
Furthermore you got an additional chance to improve your visibility in the search engines through social SEO.
There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. 4.5 billion Own a mobile phone.
Gartner Group predicts, that by 2013 the number one way people will access the internet will be through their mobile devices.
70% of all mobile searches are acted upon within an hour vs. 30% of all traditional searches.
With mobile marketing you deliver your message directly to your customer. It’s like you spoken directly to him and he listen carefully what you say.
There is no question, if you are not active mobile than you miss large opportunities to make customers aware of your business. Take action before your competitor does.
Infographic: How Online Marketing Drives Offline Success
Domino’s iPad App: Makes & Delivers Custom Pizza
Starbucks Cup Magic
Custom iPhone Application for Restaurants
Presentation: Mobile Trends and Strategies
Infographic: Dining and Restaurant Reservation Trends
15 things you can do to empower mobile restaurant marketing:
1. First of all, claim your business in the appropriate social media platforms and location-based applications.
2. Mobilize your website and start using mobile media for your business.
3. Start collecting mobile phone numbers from your customers and organize them in a database so you later send personalized SMS to them, to inform them about specials and news.
4. Use QR Codes for promotions.
5. Reward your first-time visitors
6. Change deals often to stay attractive.
7. Promote group check-ins. The more in a group, the better the deal
8. Interact with customers. Make them accomplish a small task (Origami napkin) to redeem
9. Promote to those checking-in nearby
10. Encourage interactivity
11. Keep yourself updated about mobile media and trends.
12. Design a Smart Phone app for your business. (like the one from Starbucks or Domino’s)
Coffee shops or coffee bars are not only places where you can buy a cup of fresh brew coffee but more some kind of social places to meet friends to sit together and chat.
More over coffee bars have become place where business people do meetings and also sit there with their notebook and do their work.
Coffee bars are also a great business and the only sector of gastronomy worldwide which is increasingly growing year over year.
Entrepreneurs can make good money when they operate a coffee shop or build a coffee chain like Starbucks and others worldwide have done. Here is a list of coffeehouse chains.
All successful businesses have one thing in common, they have great marketing and they care about their customers and coffee shops are no exemption.
As the coffee shop business offer great opportunities to make big money it also deserves special attention in different areas.
I do not now go to explain the different coffee beans now. I am talking about the opportunity which inbound marketing offer to a coffee shop.
Inbound marketing includes Blogging, Social Media, Lead Conversion, Lead Nurturing and Closed-Loop Analysis.
To get customers your audience need to know that you exist and what you have to offer. So you need to get found!
When you start a new coffee bar it can make sense to use Groupon for the first six months to helps boost your revenue. But when the first six month are over you need to have a creative mindset to attract new customers and keep the actual coming back to you.
You should make your coffee shop visible on Google Places so people can find you and the best thing is, they can rate you and leave a comment. You also can encourage them to do this by rewarding them for comments and ratings.
You should also register in your local web based yellow pages. As search engines index content of yellow pages your information gets indexed as well.
Start your own blog where you write about the things your audience is interested in, share these articles on the web and in social media and ask for comments and suggestions.
Build social media outposts in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and related forums and participate in the discussions and groups there.
Look what big coffee shop chains do but do not try to copy them look through other industries how they do marketing to get inspired for yours and your customer loyalty program.
You need to build your own business DNA your unique brand and this goal you can only achieve when you do your thing.
-Let me know what you think. I am looking forward to your comment.
Studies show that people surf on websites for about three hours from their mobile devices compared with one hour from their personal computer. Studies also show that actually about 260 million mobile devices are in use globally and this number is growing in a strong pace.
There is no question that growth in the B2C sector is much higher than in B2B. But keep in mind; consumers are also employed in companies can also be future B2B client. But only when you give the opportunity to know you and your company, means to offer a way to access your company information from a mobile device.
Now the question occurs how companies who are B2B oriented embrace these facts and how they plan to tune their marketing to stay competitive by simply being accessible through mobile devices, being accessible mobile for actual and future customers who research from their mobile devices for products and services your business also has to offer?
There are several indicators to keep an eye on the mobile marketing way.
1. The mobile marketing spending is increasing.
2. Smartphone’s have become state of the art and are dominating the mobile world.
3. Tablet pc demand is also increasing.
4. Mobile website optimization becomes more important.
5. Location based mobile marketing has become a powerful way to connect with customers.
6. Customers demand accessibility of information’s when they want and where they want.
Mobile usage is increasing and marketers must understand how their target audience is researching for information on the web. And they should create content to meet the needs of consumers which research the mobile way
Some stats:
- It takes 90 minutes for the average person to respond to an email. It takes 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message. (Source: CTIA.org)
- There are more mobile phones on the planet than there are TVs. (Source: Jupiter)
Infographic: Mobile Marketing B2B
– How do you deal with the increasing damand of customers to access your website on mobile devices? I am looking forward to your comment.
Companies engage increasingly in social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other forums and platforms. They go to step into conversation with their audience to offer better service and support and to strengthen the band between actual and future customers.
Social media is a great way to grow brand awareness for the business and to expand the reach to get more customers. But social media can also be a trap for those who are not familiar with managing their reputation online.
Everything a company is communicating on the web and in social media can travel a far way and have an impact on the reputation of the brand.
On social media people are talking about your last blog article, your service, products, about you and your brand. With or without your involvement.
As content which is published on social media also can be indexed by the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing the chances are great that also the content you have distributed will appear in the search engines search results too.
For you it is important to know where you or your brand name has been mentioned so you can respond. Therefore your best strategy to keep a good reputation is also to be active where your target audience is talking about you. So you can respond professionally and show your opinion.
You should care about your online reputation as the web has a wider reach than small town gossip. Future business and future contacts will be influenced by what the people find about you on the web.
Your behavior on the web and what other say about you will affect your future for sure.
To keep a good reputation you need to take care of the WHAT, WHERE and the HOW.
WHAT do you publish on the web and in social media?
You should avoid do praise your products too much. Do not make the mistake to use social media as a distribution channel and overload your audience with dump sales pitches.
WHERE do you publish your content?
Publish content topics where they belong and where they are appreciated. Therefore you need to listen carefully to your audience and give them the information they demand.
HOW do you communicate?
Always communicate in a professional and friendly way. Try to be helpful and show expertise and avoid sounding like schoolmasterly.
How you present yourself on the web can win you business and respect. To achieve this you should take the time to establish a good digital branding and biography.
Infographic: Reputation Management
–How do you protect your reputation on the web? Let me know what you think. I am looking forward to your comment.
A recent IBM study shows that 82% of CMOs worldwide are planning increase their technology investment in social media within the next three to five years.
These are interesting data. As social media evolves and more businesses jumping o this bandwagon it looks for me that three to five years are not an appropriate time frame to step into conversation with existing and future customers.
The more companies engage in social media two way communications the thinner the air becomes for those who start later. Those who come late will experience a massive uphill battle to gain positions which their competitors already have secured.
Companies which like to position their business to gain a competitive advantage need to act now, and not to wait three to five years.
Moreover companies who decide to take action within the next five years will be under risk to vanish from the customer radar and sink.
As social media is evolving at a very quick pace businesses also need to evolve to stay on track.
Content creation is the key to get found on the web. Your audience is researching o the web fist. If your audience can’t find you when they research for products or services which you also have to offer than you will lose potential business.
The three big search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are indexing content form social media. So if you are in social media your chances increase to get found on the web.
What can you do to position your business today?
If you want to do business in the next five years and beyond you should take the opportunity to jump into social media as a valuable communication channel.
A. Register the most important social media networks for your brand as they are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare and any other sites or forums where your target audience is around.
B. Complete and customize your profiles there to have a social media branding to get recognized by your audience.
C. Listen to the social media conversation and contribute if you feel you have something valuable and helpful to say.
D. Start a corporate blog where you write about topics which your audience is interested in. Share your articles in your social media channels and ask your audience about their opinion.
E. Train you staff to become your brand ambassadors on the web and I social media and give them the freedom to decide how to communicate by establishing clear social media policy.
F. Measure your doings and check out what is working and what is not working. The things which work for your business you should intensify and the thing which do not work the way you have expected you should cut back.
G. Set realistic goals! Be realistic with your social media engagement. Rome wasn’t built in a day as well. Be patient as any strategy needs time to breathe to show up results and social media marketing a blogging are no exceptions.
Infographic: The ROI of Social Media
–How about you? What are your experiences with sociel media? I am looking forward to your comment below.
The inBlurbs Inbound Internet Marketing blog covers all of
inbound marketing - SEO, Blogging, Social Media, Landing
Pages, Lead Generation and Analytics.
In the beginning of 2012 the traffic, unique visitors and time on site of some smaller sites like Tumblr, Pinterest and Google+ increased and attracted attention from marketers.
